Gen Con 2016 Ashes Tournament Review
Who charmed their way to victory?
Gen Con came and went a few weeks ago, and man was there a lot of Ashes being played there!
The Roaring Rose and The Duchess of Deception decks were available for pre-sale, but they and the other expansions we had in stock went fast. (Pre-orders from the PlaidHatGames.com store are shipping soon!)
A soon-to-be concluded cosplay contest was held. Did you see the photos??
Photo Credit: Douglas Morse. Spying through the back you can see Odette and Namine, two upcoming Phoenixborn!
The Tournaments
Much of the Ashes focus at Gen Con, though, was on our official Ashes tournaments! Two Thursday constructed deck tournaments were followed by a top-8 final at the booth on Friday, while elsewhere on Friday we held two draft tournaments!
There has been great coverage of the tournaments already! Shi Ma covered some of his games on his Twitch channel, and has uploaded a couple top 8 matches onto his YouTube channel. The Main Action podcast and Ashtray Podcast covered their experiences and both interviewed competitors. The Main Action has also begun uploading and commenting on matches from the tournaments on their YouTube channel. Finally, Elliot Kramer, the 3rd place finisher, posted about his experience at Strange Copy.
Whew! There is probably even more coverage than that, but that's what I've got for you today. Many of those links have interviews and discussions of the various big matches of the weekend, so be sure to check them out!
Thank you to everyone who participated. There were very few negative experiences that I saw, and many people kept coming back and playing in multiple tournaments - a great sign! Friendship and excitement reigned! Still, Bob and I were talking about improvements we can make for next year, and I can't wait to make those adjustments - an improved tournament system (and I hope to publish this on our site for all to use), speakers for announcements, a projector to show time left/match-ups and more.
Draft Tournaments
We hosted two draft tournaments. Because people do not spend weeks preparing their decks for these tournaments, I find them to be a little bit more light-hearted, but still quite competitive! You can read the new tournament draft rules here, which we used.
The first draft tournament was 6 pods of 6 people each, with 3 Swiss rounds in each pod. The winner of each pod moved on to the final pod, where those 6 players redrafted anew and played a final pod of 3 Swiss rounds. Erik Rodriguez went 6-0 and took the tournament. Here are the final rankings for the final pod:
- Erik Rodriguez
- Luke Fraccaro
- Garett Brett
- Brian Alexander
- Larry Wojcik
- David Alexander
Congrats to all these guys. They all won their pod, so it was exciting just to watch them draft!
The afternoon draft tournament was two 8-person pods. After 3 rounds of Swiss, the two pod winners faced off in a final showdown using the decks they had drafted for their first pods.
Jeremy Ray defeated Daniel Della Penna for the victory! Andrew Olexa and Timothy Wells rounded out the top 4 in that tournament. The draft tournaments were a blast! Thank you to everyone who participated and especially to our volunteers who had to put in a ton of time to help set up the decks and re-set the kits in between tournaments.
Morning Constructed Tournament
First Ashes tournament of #GenCon2016 underway! @PlaidHatGames pic.twitter.com/0l35RncRPL
— Timothy Meyer (@WatertribeTim) August 5, 2016
There were 2 opportunities to make the final 8 constructed tournament - the morning and afternoon tournaments. The morning tournament had 48 competitors. After 5 hard-fought rounds, the the top 8 shook out this way, with the top 4 moving on to the final 8 tournament (I have included top 4 deck lists where I have seen them posted publicly):
- Elliot Kramer (Coal) - deck list
- Skyler Tipsord (Brennen) - deck list
- Christian Pratt (Coal)
- Jason Pere (Leo) - deck list
- Erik Rodriguez (Coal)
- Ryan Jackson (Victoria)
- Nick Tinko (Orrick)
- Ed Gentry (Brennen)
Afternoon Constructed Tournament
32 competitors made up the field in the afternoon. Taken together, the top 8 in the constructed tournaments included 7 different Phoenixborn. Here's the top 8 rankings:
- Matt Bauers (Leo) - deck list
- Tim Keefe (Aradel)
- Shi Ma (Leo) - deck list
- Nick Tinko (Orrick) - deck list
- Austin Mills (Jessa)
- Daniel Della Penna (Jessa)
- Tony Stellato (Brennen)
- Jonathan Neff (Brennen)
Top 8 Tournament
Friday arrived and the top 4 of each constructed tournament came together for an epic double elimination tournament right at the Plaid Hat booth! A trophy, ultimate glory, and more were at stake.
Here are the match-ups and results:
R1: Elliot (Coal) d. Nick (Orrick)
R1: Christian (Coal) d. Tim (Aradel)
R1: Shi (Leo) d. Skyler (Brennen)
R1: Matt (Leo) d. Jaosn (Leo)
R2W: Elliot d. Christian
R2W: Matt d. Shi
R2L: Tim d. Nick
R2L: Skyler d. Jason
R3W: Matt d. Elliot
R3L: Shi d. Tim
R3L: Christian d. Skyler
And so we had the final four. Matt had gone 3-0 with his Leo deck, while two of his opponents, Shi and Elliot had climbed their way back through the loser's bracket. Christian, defeated by Elliot in round 2, now faced off against Shi for the right to a Coal-off rematch. Two Coals and two Leos remained.
Shi would not be denied, and defeated the mighty Coal Roarkwin in consecutive matches! That meant it was Leo v. Leo for the title, with Shi having to win twice.
Shi fought hard and won the first game, giving Matt his only loss of the tournament and making their match-up essentially a best-of-3. It's as epic as it gets! In the end, Matt was able to bring home the trophy in the final match and won the championship.
Once again, thanks to everyone who took park and who helped run the tournaments. It was an incredible experience to be a part of! Until next time!
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Posted by Joe Ellis |
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Jason Pere's deck list (copied from a public Facebook post):
Leo
4 Nature
4 Charm
2 Illusion
3 Rats
3 Doves
2 Bears
3 Molten
3 Sympathy
3 Remorse
3 Anguish
3 Redirect
3 Hidden Power
2 Mist Typhoon
2 Seal
